


Contre la Chance

by orphan_account



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: (reasons that include my breaking frary heart), Because of Reasons, Drabble, F/M, character study: francis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without hesitation, he answered, "Yes."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contre la Chance

**Author's Note:**

> My first Reign fic because my heart is shattered after 1x08.

When he asks her to marry him (such a strange thought, _asking_ someone to marry him), he is more sure of it than anything in his life at the moment.

And so he picks her up, arms wrapping around her waist, and spins her around. Her laugh is infectious and his smile bursts open, letting out his euphoria. As the future king of France, he never expected to marry for love, or for anything but his country. He saw his mother and father and it didn’t take him long to realize that there was nothing but practicality in their marriage. The mere existence of Bash was proof to that. Bash was even born before him and though his half-brother would be brushed aside as illegitimate, Francis would always feel that Bash was here because his parents wanted him to be, not because they needed him to be. That was only the beginning of the reasons Francis envied Bash.

But this is the one area where he is not jealous of his brother. He would be Mary’s, and she his. She, whom he once thought to be a burden upon him, a sign of his lack of freedom. The choice he was making in this moment felt like the first choice he had ever made for himself. He never even came close to entertaining the fact that he would be this lucky. He had assumed he would force himself to develop feelings for her as time went on, for he refused to be his father and brush her aside for his mistresses. But here she was, even better than she was when they were children, and he grasps her hand, elated by the way it feels in his. He runs towards the castle, because he cannot contain his emotions by only standing still and follows in his wake, laughing gloriously along the way.

He remembers when they introduced Charles and Madeleine, and Mary coaxing the young girl towards her fiancée. The image hit him so suddenly he nearly had to take a step back--he saw Mary, in his mind’s eye, only she was holding the hand of young boy with blond curls and brown eyes. They were running along the castle lawns, his young laugh reverberating in Francis’ heartstrings. Just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone and Charles was handing a shell to Madeleine, Mary smiling and looking up at him. Francis was taken aback by his thoughts. He barely knew this older Mary and wasn’t even sure if this alliance was right for France. And yet he saw a future with her.

He remembers Olivia’s return to the castle and how he felt. Or rather, what he didn’t feel. He once thought that seeing Olivia again would be the best thing to happen to him, and yet when they embraced after their long absence, he felt nothing. He briefly wonders if something is wrong with him, then he sees Mary and Bash together and what it caused him to feel and understands. There is no way he can look at Olivia the way he used to again because he looks at someone else that way. He wonders if Olivia feels the way he felt when he saw Mary and Bash when she sees he and Mary together. While Olivia’s time at court was brief and when Mary and Francis were fighting, he knows that she knew how he felt for the queen.

It was unavoidable.

His mother once asked “Is the pull so strong?”

Without hesitation, he answered, “Yes.”


End file.
